That’s a quote from a recent post of mine, with the commas tragically ripped away.

That one’s a little extreme, since it’s a list of nouns. Notice, though, how you’re not sure which words belong together. Is it “country babies?” “Equality freedom?”

I see only slightly less extreme versions of this in content every day.

Sentences I need to re-read to figure out which words go together. Sentences that stop me in the middle, like that horrible person who brakes in the middle of the street to read a text. And sentences that just seem to be running out of breath.

I love what Ursula Le Guin had to say about punctuation in her book on narrative, Steering the Craft:

“… punctuation tells the reader ‘how to hear’ our writing. That’s what it’s for. Commas and periods bring out the grammatical structure of a sentence; they make it clear to the understanding, and the emotions, by showing what it sounds like — where the breaks come, where to pause.”

Take the last bit of that and strip away the punctuation. Notice how hard it gets to understand:

they make it clear to the understanding and the emotions by showing what it sounds like where the breaks come where to pause

Getting your punctuation in order isn’t about making English teachers happy. (Although that, also, is a worthy goal.)

It’s about making your writing clearer, more pleasing, and easier to read.

Does punctuation matter in “conversational” copy?

Some writers feel that the rules of punctuation will make their writing stuffy. Better to just “write like I talk,” and let the voice make a connection.

Getting a really good grasp on punctuation allows you to write more like you talk, by giving the reader a simple way to understand the structure of each sentence.

If you’re writing content for any kind of purpose — for clients, to support your business, or even to promote a hobby or other personal goal — your words have to find the right place in your audience’s ears. Punctuation helps that happen naturally and painlessly.

We’re lucky to live in the 21st century, with a bunch of useful resources to help us fill in those gaps.

The best option is probably to hire a good proofreader (or possibly even an off-duty English teacher) to look over your work and find the errors. If this person is really wonderful, they can explain the errors to you, so you’re less likely to make them again.

That’s not workable for everyone, and — this will strike some as heresy — I have no problem with writers using a tool like Grammarly to help find missing commas (and get rid of the ones that are there for no reason).

Early automated usage and grammar correctors were pretty dumb. They tended to introduce a lot of errors and mark perfectly acceptable usage as incorrect.

The new tools, like Grammarly, are smarter. But they’re still not perfect, and that brings us to the next point …

Develop a solid understanding of punctuation rules

If Grammarly or your proofreader flags a missing comma and you don’t understand why, take a minute or two and figure it out.

You can check websites like Grammar Girl, or books like The Well-Tempered Sentence or The Elements of Style Illustrated. (A friend just turned me on to the illustrated version of that classic, and it’s a charmer.)

You can hire a tutor for an hour or two. Or get on Facebook and find out which of your friends were English majors.

I wouldn’t get too hung up on a specific style. In 2018, it doesn’t matter much whether you prefer AP Style or Chicago, or how you feel about the serial comma. Just be consistent and deliberate with your choices.

And for the love of your country your faith mom apple pie democracy kittens and everything else that is decent and right and good please get some commas into your blog posts before I have some kind of an unfortunate brain event.

Sonia Simone

Sonia Simone is co-founder and Chief Content Officer of Copyblogger. She writes about content marketing strategy here, and about creativity, the craft of writing, and creative productivity at Remarkable Communication. If you like audio content, you can hear Sonia's takes on marketing and business on the Copyblogger FM podcast.

When I lived in DC, I was friends with a political speech writer. I listened to him prompt the politician: “When you see a comma – PAUSE. Breathe. Let a second to pass, it will give impact and clarify what you are saying by allowing the listeners to absorb the words.” As the politician stepped onto the stage, my friend once more said: Pause!! It was a very impressive speech. I believe in commas. They are powerful when used properly. As an editor, I cringe when I see them tossed about by the writer in a willy-nilly style… or ignored completely. I read a work, in it, one paragraph, 2/3 of a full page, single-spaced with only a capital letter at the start and a period at the end. No other punctuation! The author had no idea what a comma was. There were NONE in his work… well, that is until I finished editing. LOL.

Bless the person(s) who invented Grammarly! I not only feel more confident using it, I’ve learned a LOT. As you suggested, rather than just blindly making corrections I look up things I don’t understand and it’s gratifying to see that I’m making fewer mistakes than when I started using it. Thanks for the important reminder.

Ah, the comma. A comma tells you how to read. Commas also tell you when to stop, to breath, and to move forward. What a blessing. Thank goodness I err on the side of using comments, versus writing runaway sentences.

Amen, Sonia! The misuse and disuse of the comma is one of my biggest grammar pet peeves. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who appreciates this seemingly lowly but incredibly important punctuation mark!

I blog in English, which is not my first language. It’s harder but more fun for me. I use Grammarly to check my grammar. In my mother tongue, the comma usage is the same as in English so I also dislike the misuse and disuse of it.

For a minute, I thought I was doing something wrong writing my posts.
I have a good suggestion for your book club. “Humboldt’s Gift,” A 1976 Nobel-Prize-winning novel by Saul Bellow, who incidentally does away with commas.
Although a novel narrative is one thing, and mandatory punctuation in blog writing, another.

Writing like you talk is even more difficult, if English is not your first language. There are times I think in my native language when writing, and if I wrote things in English along my thought, it makes little sense without punctuation. The way we communicate on social media play a big role in sending punctuation marks, especially the comma, into extinction. It’s why some comments sound ridiculous. The comma is very important. I appreciated it a lot, as a theatre student.